Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
A dark, worn sleeveless vest with a cracked, shiny covering and brown edging, shown on a white mannequin torso.
Open the full imageJPG, 1077 × 1200 px, 0.2 MB

Body armor recovered after the Barrington, Illinois, shootout of 27 November 1934 (FBI artifact)

FBI photograph of body armor the Bureau says was recovered on 27 November 1934 after a shootout in Barrington, Illinois, in which Special Agent Herman Edward Hollis and Lester Gillis ("Baby Face" Nelson) were killed.

Date
1934-11-27
Kind
photograph
Source
FBI, History: Artifacts
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
Published by the FBI on fbi.gov as an artifact photograph with no third-party credit; a work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The copy stored here is the FBI's web image converted to JPEG.

The FBI’s caption reads: “Baby Face Nelson’s body armor was recovered on November 27, 1934, after a shootout in Illinois.” The page, an Artifact of the Month for June 2016, places the shootout at Barrington, Illinois, and states that Special Agent Herman Edward Hollis and Lester Gillis, known as “Baby Face” Nelson, were killed in it.

The FBI page does not give the armor’s maker or how it was made, and this page does not supply either.

Object: Body armor
Maker: not stated on the FBI page
Date: recovered 27 November 1934
Provenance: held by the FBI; the page gives no chain of custody
Appears in: FBI, Artifact of the Month, June 2016